Acorn World 1996

It's been claimed that this year's Acorn World show at Olympia 2 in London
was the best Acorn show to date. Whether or not this is true, one thing is
certain - it wasn't the best show for new games. In fact, it was almost certainly
the worst. There weren't even half the number of new releases there were at
last year's show.

The first thing that struck me about Destiny was its speed. Despite the
fact that the version on display was written half in BASIC it was still running
at a respectable speed, especially given that it was running on a Risc PC 600
with its original processor. At first sight the game seemed rather too brightly
lit, but closer inspection revealed some interesting features:

The game is, in fact, properly lit - the picture here shows the subtle
distance fade off

The game has a much better lighting model than Doom,
which can only alter textures to simulate non distance-related lighting -
the lighting effect is either
on or off in Doom, whereas Destiny can graduate the effects.

The water looked really good, with its height physically undulating
rather than Doom's stagnant texture map changes. Impressive.

Doors animate when opened, rather than merely sliding aside

The game has a proper 3D model, unlike Doom's shortcuts which limit the
level design possibilities

It can cope with large texture tiles

The game can run using a variety of different screen resolutions

Unfortunately the harddisc Robert brought to the show with the monster
handling code on turned out to have become damaged, so the "other lifeforms"
were not on display, although a preliminary animation of a running
dinosaur was. Robert has access to departmental rendering facilities and
hopes to produce some very well animated creatures, although they will
be sprite-based (like in Doom) as opposed to Quake's true 3D
creatures which plot lots of polygons.

No weapons were on display, and there's obviously still quite a way to go,
but the fundamentally important rendering code was certainly looking very
promising. Working on the game with Robert Templeman are Robert Alcock,
Simon Frazer and Andrew Ingram, with music composed by Mirko Vidovic.
They hope to get it finished for the Wakefield show next spring, and it
will cost between 30 and 35 pounds, which seems a reasonable enough price.

Finally, Peter Otterman's Proposal is
apparently still very much in development, and it won't be using TAG.
No release date was given for it, and, apart from the forthcoming rally
game, no other new releases appear to be in sight.

Oregan had no new games, but had an offer of any two of their back issue titles
for £24.95, with a choice from Burn 'Out2067 BC, Sally
and Wally, Arcturus and Magnetoids. No Risc PC upgrade
was in sight for Quark, which seems a shame.

Clares were selling some of their old games at show prices. Fervour was
£10 (although it's not Risc PC or StrongARM compatible) and the
ancient Interdictor 2 was £10 (although £1.50 on the
NCS charity stall).

RComp were selling PC Sound Professional, developed in association
with Aleph One and ESP, which they claim improves sound on the PC card
under DOS, Windows and Windows '95. It seemed very expensive at £30,
with no show or launch discount, and several people have reported that
it in fact doesn't work with a lot of games, although I can't confirm the
accuracy of this myself. Personally I use my PowerWAVE card with PC
games and the MIDI music always works fine, so I'm not so bothered about
the odd dodgy sample.

Q-Tec Technological Resources were selling a variety of reasonably priced
printer-port
MIDI interfaces (and, incidentally, had some great offers on Fatar MIDI master
keyboards which are open until the 11th November), and were also selling
the superb Yamaha DB50-XG board packaged into an external box with a MIDI
in. If you've got the money (£199, although this might be a show
offer too) go and buy one! You won't regret
it. The sound quality is simply superb, and it makes an amazing difference
to PC games. Many recent games explicitly support this card, and you
can download plenty of MIDI files especially for it. Phone (01429)
890800 for details, or email them.

Q-Tec also had a rather unique product called ARM-Switcher available, which allows
you to fit two main processor cards, and switch between them. This could be
useful for games ("Ideal for Game Players" said the blurb), and might be worth the investment if you've got a large
catalogue of games you want to run!